Star Wars: Battlefront 2

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And it's there, and in numerous other places in what's a relatively broad package, that you reconnect with the sense of wonder that's at the heart of this series. Star Wars Battlefront 2, for all its faults, remains a game that can get to the kernel of what makes the series so beloved. It's just a shame that, for now, it's also inherited some of its uglier excesses too.

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Star Wars Battlefront 2 is made up of many different parts that are pretty good, but the whole is consistently undermined by poor choices in the game’s multiplayer economy. No aspect of Battlefront 2 is beyond redemption, but it’s hard to fall in love with any part of it, either. It’s mostly a disjointed, sporadically fun collection of modes set in familiar Star Wars scenes. Because players have no idea what is really being sold to them, or when, you have a big-name launch that gets in the way of itself more than it creates fun.

Star Wars Battlefront II is the epitome of taking a step forward, shooting yourself in the foot and then falling backwards in pain. It goes to great lengths to rectify the mistakes of the previous game but ends up opening a new can of worms. We finally got a single player campaign, but the story is lackluster and Iden never gets a chance to shine. There’s more content and depth, but the game is severely hampered by the lack of a progression system.

And it's there, and in numerous other places in what's a relatively broad package, that you reconnect with the sense of wonder that's at the heart of this series. Star Wars Battlefront 2, for all its faults, remains a game that can get to the kernel of what makes the series so beloved. It's just a shame that, for now, it's also inherited some of its uglier excesses too.

Even if you’re not a fan of Star Wars, Battlefront 2 still a decent game. Just please don’t spend real life money on EA’s loot crates. Yoda’s advice on buying loot crates “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.”

While its main narrative feels unresolved, and the general loop of the multiplayer carries a number of issues, Battlefront II still manages to evoke that same sense of joy and excitement found in the core of what the series is all about. But as it stands, the biggest hurdle that Battlefront II will need to overcome--for its simultaneous attempts to balance microtransactions with genuine feeling of accomplishments--is deciding on what type of game it wants to be.

Performance Review: But Star Wars Battlefront II isn't perfect. For starters, threading could be improved on Radeon cards under DirectX 11, and the addition of a DirectX 12 rendering mode seems more like an afterthought than a viable option. CPU utilization with GeForce cards installed seems way too high under DirectX 11 without any real reason, since frame rates aren't much higher than what you'd get from a comparable Radeon.

EA already temporarily removed people’s ability to buy “Crystals,” the real-world currency you could previously exchange for loot boxes. That act didn’t “remove” microtransactions from Star Wars: Battlefront II though—not really. The multiplayer framework was still built around those microtransactions. The ghosts are there. It’s almost impossible to play Battlefront II the traditional way and have a good time, because the whole system was built on a grind. All they’ve done is made it so you can’t pay to escape it. Now everyone has to suffer through the crappy version.